Persistence of Morphine in Blood in Association with Hepatic Necrosis and Renal Tubular Necrosis

A case is reported in which a 26-year-old male survived in a hospital for 38 h after an intravenous heroin injection. Postmortem analysis showed 0.2 mg/100 ml morphine in the blood and 0.05 mg/100 g morphine in the liver. The persistence of morphine in the blood was attributed to the inability of damaged liver cells to take up the morphine and of the hypoxic kidney to excrete the compound.